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A Fish Currie

A fish currie is a stew of fish simmered with curry powder, butter, shallot, onions, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,431 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Fish Currie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the soaked fish into pieces.

  2. Combine the fish with enough water to cover it in a pot and mix in the curry powder.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet and fry the minced shallot and onions with pepper and salt until browned.

  2. Add the browned mixture to the fish and stew everything together until the fish is tender.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish and turns tender as it stews.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the onions brown and carry flavour.
Onions
Browned to build sweetness and savoury depth in the curry base.
Curry powder
Provides the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the shallot and onions. Frying until properly browned develops sweet, deep flavours through caramelisation. Pale, under-browned onions leave the curry tasting flat and raw.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, onion, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, onion, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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